List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
This is a list of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction works, sorted by the nature of the catastrophe portrayed. Nuclear holocaust World War III and other apocalyptic wars (between humans) Film Television Novels Short stories and plays Games Comics and manga Other Pandemic (plague) Films Television Novels Other Astronomic impact (meteorites, asteroids, planets, etc.) Films Television Novels Other Alien invasion Films Novels Television Other Ecological catastrophe Films Novels Television Other Cybernetic revolt (apocalyptic wars between humans and technology) Film Novels Television Gaming Other The decline and fall of the human race * The latter part of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895) * The 1939 cartoon short Peace on Earth by Hugh Harman, in which animals rebuild a post-apocalyptic world after humanity has fought wars to the point of extinction. * The novel At Winter's End (1988) by Robert Silverberg * The poem Bedtime Story from Collected Poems 1958–1970 by George Macbeth * Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun series * The novel The Camp of the Saints (1973) by Jean Raspail. * The novel The Bridge (1973) by D. Keith Mano presents a world dominated by a global environmental fascism, where the government ultimately promotes the extinction of the human race by enforced mass suicide, so as to ‘save’ the environment. * Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End * The novel City (1952) by Clifford D. Simak * Friday (novel) by Robert A. Heinlein, which portrays human society on a future Earth as slipping into a gradual, but inevitable, collapse. * Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut. After an ambiguous eradication of the human species, several people on a cruise to the Galápagos Islands get stranded there. Much to the dismay of the only male left, the women of the island continue the human species for thousands of years where they evolve into seal-like creatures. * Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle * The 1974 John Boorman film Zardoz * The Japanese manga Biomega, NOiSE, Blame! and Net Sphere Engineer by Tsutomu Nihei * The Japanese manga and anime The Big O, where humans apparently suffered mass amnesia 40 years prior and are afraid to leave their city, Paradigm. It is a sort of mecha/apocalypse subclass of its own; the protagonist has to battle mechanical beings and other robots who are trying to destroy the remnants of the human race. * The Cartoon Network/Adult Swim animated parody of the barbarian/post-apocalyptic genres, Korgoth of Barbaria * The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King * The 1979 Australian movie Mad Max depicts a declining civilization. * Michael Haneke's film Le Temps du Loup (The Time of the Wolf), following a family through the (French?) country side after an undefined catastrophic collapse of civilization. * The movie A.I. depicts human extinction after 2000 years. * The manga/anime series Wolf's Rain takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where constant conflicts between nobles leaves whole parts of the earth uninhabited, cities in ruins, and technology rare. Only the nobles possess futuristic ships, and the richest have domed cities where the debilitated earth can still support life. A second apocalypse ends the series, with a presumable renewing of the planet. * The song In the Year 2525 by Zager and Evans, which describes, stage by stage, the decline of the human race. Covers the 26th, 36th, 46th, 56th, 66th, 76th, 86th and 96th centuries. * The television series The Future Is Wild, which uses computer animation to simulate the sort of creatures that may evolve from present-day animals. In the world depicted in the series, the human race either has become extinct or has left Earth. The reason is not given. * The short story "To Serve The Master" By Philip K. Dick * The 2006 film Children of Men, where the human race has become infertile. * The 1984 film 1990:The Bronx Warriors In 1990 the Bronx is declared a No Mans Land after a catastrophic uprising. * The 1997 film The End of Evangelion, in which all humankind are reverted to a "primordial soup" and merged into a single consummate being. * The The House of the Dead series of video games. Scientist Dr. Curien finds a way to reanimate the dead, though not without disastrous results. Later in the series' timeline, Caleb Goldman uses the undead in his mission to destroy the human race and protect the Earth from further destruction by humans. * The 2006 novel Return by Clayton J Elliott - in which ecological and social unrest leave a world fighting to find a new relationship to the earth. An anti-technology novel. * The 2007 film Tooth and Nail Post-apocalyptic movie where a group of survivors, called Foragers, take cover in an old abandoned hospital where the group attempt to re build society. All we know of the apocalypse is that man "Ran out of gas", but not in the sense of oil, just that our time was up. * The 2001 video game Pikmin and its sequel, the 2004 video game Pikmin 2, is set on an unnamed planet simply called as the planet of the Pikmins, inhabited by animals and plants. Although it is unnamed in-game, several cutscenes shows it as Earth, or at least a very Earth-like planet. Further hints is man-made objects in both games like the Abstract Masterpiece, a bottle cap, and the Remembered Old Buddy, a R.O.B., as well as the stage based on the Pikmin planet in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Distant Planet, which its data refers to as Earth. *The 2004 film Idiocracy takes the premise that with no natural predators to thin the population of the world, evolution simply rewards whoever can pass on their genes the fastest, who are depicted as sexually promiscuous drunken brutes. The average IQ is 80 by 2100, 60 by 2200, and 40 by 2505. Monsters and biologically altered humans See also Zombie apocalypse After the fall of space-based civilization Films Television Novels Gaming Expanding or Dying Sun * The 1895 novel The Time Machine. Towards the end of the book The Time Traveler witnesses the Suns expansion, causing the death of all life on Earth. * The 1912 novel The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, in which the Sun burns out and the last of humanity is sheltered in an arcology from the hostile environment and the creatures adapted for it. * The 1945 short story Rescue Party by Arthur C. Clarke * The 1971 short story Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven. * The 1974 film Where Have All The People Gone? A solar flare destroys virtually all of the human population. One family has survived, and endeavours to travel across America to their family home. * The 1976 novel A World Out of Time by Larry Niven * The 1980 novel The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe Followed by The Claw of the Conciliator (1981), The Sword of the Lictor (1981), The Citadel of the Autarch (1982), and The Urth of the New Sun (1987). * The 1981 novel The Quiet Earth by Craig Harrison Adapted into the 1985 movie of the same name. * The episode "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", of J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5 * The episode "The End of the World", of the television series Doctor Who * The novel Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke in which the last survivors of Earth arrive at a distant colony unexpectedly. * The comic series Just a Pilgrim by Garth Ennis * The video game "Tetris Worlds" * The poem "Darkness" by Lord Byron describes the end of life on earth after the sun's extinction. * The movie "Last Night" by Don McKellar, which follows the lives of several individuals as they cope with their final six hours on Earth before the apparent incineration of the Earth by the sun (the cause of the apocalypse is never directly stated). * The short story "Finis" by Frank Lillie Pollock where a second sun's light incinerates the Earth. * The 2007 movie, Sunshine, directed by Danny Boyle. The film follows a spaceship crew in the year 2057 who are tasked with reigniting Earth's dying sun. * The 2009 movie, "Knowing" tells of a story where the end of the world, caused by a solar flare erupting onto the solar system, is accurately predicted. Religious and supernatural apocalypse (Eschatological fiction) * The 1908 novel Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson. * The 1953 short story The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke, taken from the short story collection of the same name. * The 2009 apocalyptic fiction series Dominion by Compasse, a supernatural thriller with religious and geopolitical themes. Through seven books, 'the secret language of music has been discovered', and becomes a powerful force in this end-times scenario. Published by Sacrata Dei Press. * The evangelical Christian film series 1972 A Thief in the Night, sometimes referred to as the Mark IV films. * A series of films made in the 1990s and 2000s by Cloud Ten Pictures * The young adult book series Countdown by Daniel Parker, in which a demon wipes out the entire human population save for teenagers. * The Deadlands: Hell on Earth role-playing game, in which the Earth is reduced to a haunted, radioactive wasteland as a result of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ravaging the planet shortly after an eldritch nuclear war. * The End of the Age, by Pat Robertson * The book and film series Left Behind, concerning the Rapture. * The novels Black Easter and The Day After Judgment by James Blish, in which a black magician brings about the end of the world by releasing all the demons from Hell. * The Power of Five series by Anthony Horowitz * 1995. The sci-fi anime Neon Genesis Evangelion in which mankind's unearthing of a being known as Adam brings about Second Impact, a catastrophic shockwave which destroys Antarctica and subsequently leads to the extinction of thousands of organisms, the destruction of much of the civilized world, and the deaths of billions. Millions more die from the social and economic troubles which follow this impact and the ensuing wars. * 2007-Ongoing . Rebuild of Evangelion- remake of the anime series. The first of the four films, [1.0 You Are (Not) Alone|Evangelion: 1.0- You are [Not Alone]], debuted in 2007, with the second part, 2.0- You Shall (Not) Advance, debuting in 2009. * The film The Rapture (1991) * The 1989 novel The Dead, by Mark E. Rogers. Combines themes of the rapture and zombies. * The zombie novels The Rising and its sequel City of the Dead by Brian Keene. Rather than the zombies being an infection, as in most zombie fiction; these zombies are reanimated by demonic entities, the sisquisim, from the Old Testament. * Brian Keene has also written The Conqueror Worms which is a very Lovecraftian tale of one of the last survivors on earth. In the novel, the world floods causing several monsters appear, mainly gigantic, maneating earthworms. * The novel Shade's Children by Garth Nix, in which a group of extradimensional beings invade earth and cause all human adults to vanish. * The manga and subsequent anime movies and TV series Silent Möbius by Kia Asamiya. The story is set in a Blade Runner-style world which has been invaded by demonic beings. * The novel The Taking, by Dean Koontz in which a malevolent demonic force kills off the majority of the human race. * John Shirley's 2000 novel Demons revolves around a demonic invasion of Earth. * The Third Millennium (1995) and The Fourth Mellennium (1996), by Paul Meier * The Tribe 8 role-playing game, in which sadistic demons invade (and conquer) the Earth. * The Clamp anime X/1999 in which the seven Dragons of Heaven battle the Dragons of Earth to save the world. * Hellgate: London – computer game released in 2007, where demons and humans are in constant struggle on earth. * The Doom series of computer games, in which demons invade a human base on Phobos (changed to Mars in Doom 3) and then move on to Earth. * The 2006 film Pulse and its 2009 sequel Pulse 2: Afterlife. * The Shadow of Yesterday role-playing game, in which the unification of all people in a fantasy world under a single, supernatural language results in the destruction of a world by what is presumed to be an asteroid that becomes that world's new moon, one that eclipses the sun for a week out of each month. Social or economic collapse Unspecified phenomena * The 1885 novel After London by Richard Jefferies; the nature of the catastrophe is never stated, except that apparently most of the human race quickly dies out, leaving England to revert to nature. * The 1914 novel Darkness and Dawn by George Allan England, in which two characters wake from suspended animation and find that some great disaster has torn an enormous chasm in the Earth and created a second moon. * The Starlost is a Canadian-produced science fiction television series devised by writer Harlan Ellison and broadcast in 1973 on CTV in Canada and on NBC in the United States. * The 1975 novel Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany. * The 1978 short story "Trucks" by Stephen King. An unknown phenomenon makes Earth's machines turn against mankind. It was later made into the movie Maximum Overdrive which added an alien invasion subplot. *The 1978 novel "False Dawn" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Two humans searching for a way to survive in toxic wasteland. Republished in 2001. *The 1985 picture book Baaa by David Macaulay, in which the human race has somehow gone extinct, leaving sheep to take over the world. The sheep's civilization winds up displaying the same array of economic troubles, overpopulation, and crime, and after a while they too become extinct. *The Dayworld series by Philip Jose Farmer, in which the reasons for the Dayworld dystopia seems to be a combination involving overpopulation, ecological catastrophe, some sort of disaster that rendered petroleum unusable, and World War III. This is hinted at in the second book, Dayworld Rebel. * The 1987 novel In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster. * The 1994 novel Vanishing Point by Michaela Roessner. Life in Silicon Valley 30 years after the mysterious and spontaneous disappearance of 90% of the world's population. The Winchester Mystery House ("The House") serves as a focal point for parallel universes and inexplicable energies that are changing the world and its post-Vanishing children. * The Emberverse series novels by S. M. Stirling, in which a disaster of indeterminate cause (most speculation within the novels concerns an all-powerful outside force, often facetiously referred to as "Alien space bats") causes electricity, combustion engines, and modern explosives to cease functioning. * The series of novels set in the world of Wraeththu by Storm Constantine, in which humanity is replaced as the planet's dominant species by a race of mystic hermaphrodites. War and plague ravage the human population, but no single cause is specified. * The 1988 novel Tea from an Empty Cup by Pat Cadigan, set in a cyberpunk world following a vaguely described natural cataclysm. * Ongoing comic series Wasteland takes place roughly 100 years in the future, where North America is a dustbowl and lacking modern technology. * The 1997 movie Alien Resurrection features a deleted scene (restored to the film in the Alien Quadrilogy box set) in which Ripley and the other survivors land the Auriga in a devastated Paris. The cause of the destruction is never made clear, but presumably there was a war. * The 2006 film Android Apocalypse, cause of apocalypse unknown * The 2006 video game Mother 3, in which a small group of humans escape to a post-apocalyptic utopia after the "old world" is destroyed. While the game never explains what happened to the "old world", they say that the humans were the ones that caused its destruction. * The 2006 novel Guardando la fine del mondo by Riccardo Deias, set in alternative world and time. * The 2006 novel "Night Work" by Thomas Glavinic, in which a man wakes up to find that everyone else has disappeared. * The 2009 film The Road, based on the 2006 novel of the same name. * Desolation: Post Apocalyptic Fantasy Roleplaying, a 2008 RPG from Greymalkin Designs. * The 2004 Flash movie "Salad Fingers" (although a 'great war' is mentioned, it may not be the cause of Salad Fingers' dwelling being in a dilapidated, post-apocalyptic state) * The 2009 album "Songs From The Floodplain" by Jon Boden * The 2009 French film Les derniers jours du monde epicts the story of a man, Robinson, who travels across France and Spain during the end of the world. * The 2008 TV documentary film, Life after People, and the spin-off, Life After People: The Series, document life on earth where the human race had gone extinct. The shows doesn't mention on a cause of the extinction of humans. See also * Apocalypse * Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction * List of time travel science fiction * Nuclear holocaust * Nuclear weapons in popular culture * Survivalism * Survivalism in fiction * World War III * List of nuclear holocaust fiction References External links * * Quiet Earth - A website dedicated to post apocalyptic media * Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction - online book by Paul Brians, Professor of English at Washington State University. * Empty World: Apocalyptic and End of the World Fiction, Film and TV * Surviving Armageddon: Beyond the Imagination of Disaster - article by Mick Broderick in Science Fiction Studies. * The Empire of Texas by Rodger Olsen * Post Apocalyptic Media - Lists of P.A. games / movies / etc * List of songs related to World War III and nuclear war Category:Apocalyptic fiction Category:Post-apocalyptic fiction Category:Anime and manga lists Category:Comics-related lists Category:Lists of video games by theme or setting Category:Lists of films by genre Category:Lists of books by genre or type Category:Lists about role-playing games Category:Lists of television series de:Endzeitfilm fr:Liste de films post-apocalyptiques ru:Список постапокалиптических произведений